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EVENT DETAILS |
Our program welcomes FinTech start-ups to receive feedback from our guest mentors. Our mentors include individuals from around the FinTech community & have expertise in marketing, legal, business development & other fields to accelerate start-ups' growth.
In order for your startup to be considered for mentorship you must submit an application. Submit your application via Google Forms.
If you are accepted to attend the event you will receive an email with time confirmations from rachel@thinkrise.com. This event will be virtual, using video conferencing for the meetings & the time slots are 40 mins each.
Jim Bark is a strategic adviser, a startup founder, a former M&A banker & a former lawyer.
Jim advises businesses & governments on strategy & long-term planning. Jim currently is advising a large, mid-western city on the development of a grid-scale battery storage innovation hub; a National Science Foundation Award winning company developing an AI platform to genomically test wastewater & determine the optimal treatment process (significantly reducing operating costs of treatment plants by limiting the amount of chemicals & energy used to treat wastewater); & a developer of thin film, foldable solar panels that can be installed on the outer walls of office buildings, unfolding when sunny to generate electricity & retracting when not (this tech is expected create a new market for solar panels - Urban Solar).
Jim is currently working to launch Qoral, a startup trying to consumerize carbon-credits. Qoral will enable drivers to offset their carbon emissions by offering them the option to voluntarily purchase fractional carbon credits at the pump after filling their gas tank. Jim's first startup was KYSSMET (Know Your Shopper System). It was a retail tech startup built to help brick & mortar retailers bridge the data imbalance relative to online retailers. It was a single app shared by multiple retailers - when a user entered a retailer's store, the app re-skinned to be that store's app for the duration of the visit. It gamified shopping by enabling users to select items to play for a discount, collecting browsing interest data with each play for a discount.
Prior to KYSSMET, Jim was a Mergers & Acquisition banker for 20 years at several firms including Socit Gnrale, Wasserstein Perella, & Morgan Stanley. Jim advised on over 30 transactions with a cumulative transaction value of approximately $50BN. Jim represented Canadian Hydro on its takeover defense against a $1.6BN unsolicited bid from TransAlta (this was the world's first hostile takeover of a renewable energy company), Cegedim on its hostile acquisition of Dendrite ($750MM), Intercontinental Exchange on its unsuccessful bid for the Chicago Board of Trade ($12BN), Mitsui on its acquisition of Mexican power generation assets from Gas Natural ($1.5BN), Keurig Coffee Systems on its sale to Green Mountain Coffee, NYSE on its acquisition of Euronext ($10BN).
Before becoming an Investment Banker, Jim was an Articling Attorney at Lang Michener in Toronto specializing in Securities & Corporate Law.
Jim has an MBA from Columbia Business School, a LLB from University of Toronto Faculty of Law, & a BS from Trinity College, University of Toronto.
Mentoring Areas:
Business Development & Sales, Fundraising / Investing, Strategy & Growth
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